Es­co­cia: Fish­fa­ce

The pu­blic ex­pect re­tai­lers and res­tau­rants to en­su­re that the fish they sell are ma­na­ged sus­tai­na­bi­lity. This, coupled with bet­ter te­ch­no­logy, is dri­ving a move to­wards tra­cea­bi­lity and Fu­lly Do­cu­men­ted Fis­he­ries (FDF).

This means that lar­ge offs­ho­re ves­sels, which pro­vi­de most of the catch ea­ten in pros­pe­rous coun­tries, are ha­ving to shar­pen up their act. The irony is that for small sca­le fis­hers, in­clu­ding tho­se who are in­trin­si­ca­lly sus­tai­na­ble, FDF of­ten costs more than the va­lue of their catch, th­rea­te­ning their very exis­ten­ce. Pro­ject Fish­fa­ce, sup­por­ted by the Light­hou­se Foun­da­tion, is wor­king to bring down costs for the­se ar­ti­sa­nal fis­he­ries.

For 2018, Mal­colm Mac­Gar­vin was able to rai­se £ 25,000 from ot­her do­nors to im­ple­ment the con­cept.

This re­sul­ting ProjectFishface, is now mo­ving to a full ope­ra­tio­nal trial, pus­hing hard at the li­mits of te­ch­no­logy and cost. This in­clu­des re­pla­cing bes­po­ke equip­ment used on lar­ge fis­hing ves­sels with (re­la­ti­vely) cheap Gar­min VIRB ac­tion ca­me­ras, which ne­vert­he­less pro­vi­de the th­ree es­sen­tials: HD vi­deo, GPS tra­cking, and the abi­lity to run off ex­ter­nal po­wer. The ope­ra­tio­nal trial will che­ck that the ca­me­ras can withs­tand long-term wa­ter and salt ex­po­su­re, in­clu­ding suc­cess­fu­lly wi­ring the ca­me­ra into the boat elec­trics (to avoid time con­su­ming and ea­sily mis­sed bat­tery chan­ges by the crew). The lar­gest ca­me­ra cards should have the ca­pa­city to re­cord an en­ti­re days fis­hing from boat start-up to shut down, which also re­du­cing de­mands on the crew. Then, on land, all this data must be trans­fe­rred off the cards and onto on­li­ne sto­ra­ge.

Time is mo­ney, so speed is es­sen­tial to make FDF af­for­da­ble. The la­test cards and com­pu­ters should allow ten full cards – ten ves­sel/​days, some 140 hrs – to be co­pied and ba­cked up in 30 mi­nu­tes. The­se com­pu­ters should also allow ra­pid skim­ming of HD vi­deo, ma­king it pos­si­ble to qui­ckly iso­la­te fis­hing epi­so­des from ot­her vi­deo. Ul­tra-high speed in­ter­net is be­co­ming more avai­la­ble, which should allow HD vi­deo from ten ves­sel­s’ fish hau­ling per day, now re­du­ced down to around 30 hours, to be uploa­ded to on­li­ne cloud sto­ra­ge in well un­der an hour, and pro­vi­de a tam­per-proof link bet­ween the vi­deo, date, lo­ca­tion and ves­sel iden­ti­fi­ca­tion for third party vie­wing, pro­vi­ding full tra­cea­bi­lity. For tho­se parts of the world whe­re the­se speeds are una­vai­la­ble, a shuttle courier ser­vi­ce will be re­qui­red, ad­ding a few days to the pro­cess.

The pur­po­se of the ope­ra­tio­nal trial is to chan­ge ‘shoul­d’ in all of the sta­te­ments abo­ve to ‘wi­ll’, at which point Fishface will be fu­lly ope­ra­tio­nal and ready for wi­des­pread use.